Trivalent metal ions are important components in a variety of materials requiring a high degree of purity. Representative of these materials are ceramo-optical materials such as terbium aluminum garnet, yttrium aluminum garnet and other trivalent rare earth aluminum garnets; gallium arsenide semiconductors, conductive nickel coatings such as indium oxides (ITO) and rare earth doped phosphors.
Many materials produced to date have not attained the desired properties predicted by theory owing to impurity levels within the material. These impurities manifest themselves as a decrease in material transparency, Verdet constant, K; semiconductor carrier density; semiconductor carrier mobility; and phosphor emission quench rates. These impurities are often traced to contaminants associated with trivalent metal compounds.
Thus, there exists a need for a process to produce a high purity trivalent metal compound that reduces impurity loading within the resultant compound. There also exists a need for a trivalent metal compound of high purity amenable to the fabrication of ceramo-optics, semiconductors and other materials that benefit from high precursor purity.